Chicago's Polish Downtown

By Victoria Granacki and Polish Museum of America

Illustrating the first 75 years of Chicago's influential Polish neighborhood.

Polish Downtown is Chicago's oldest Polish settlement and was the capital of American Polonia from the 1870s through the first half of the 20th century. Nearly all Polish undertakings of any consequence in the U.S. during that time either started or were directed from this part of Chicago's near northwest side. Chicago's Polish Downtown features some of the most beautiful churches in Chicago - St. Stanislaus Kostka, Holy Trinity and St. John Cantius - stunning examples of Renaissance and Baroque Revival architecture that form part of the largest concentration of Polish parishes in Chicago. The headquarters for almost every major Polish organization in America were clustered within blocks of each other and four Polish-language daily newspapers were published here. The heart of the photographic collection in this book is from the extensive library and archives of the Polish Museum of America, still located in the neighborhood today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jul 21, 2004
• ISBN: 9781439614983

Victoria Granacki

Author Victoria Granacki grew up Polish Catholic in Chicago. Her grandparents came from Poland and instilled in her a deep love for her Polish heritage. She is a principal with Granacki Historic Consultants and has written many architectural and community histories for Chicago and its suburbs.

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INTRODUCTION

Chicago’s Polish Downtown from the late 19th throughout the first half of the 20th century was the capital of American Polonia. Known to its Polish residents as Stanislowowo-Trojcowo, after St. Stanislaus Kostka and Holy Trinity, two of the largest Catholic parishes in the world, it grew up on the northwest side of the city of Chicago, around Division, Ashland, and Milwaukee avenues. By 1890 it was the city’s largest Polish settlement, with almost half of all Chicago Poles living here. The neighborhood contained a rich complex of parish and community institutions so complete that they could provide nearly all the services residents required—religious, educational, political, economic, and recreational—without Poles ever needing to leave the area. Though the physical size of the neighborhood was compact, its influence was far-reaching. Nearly all Polish undertakings of any consequence in the United States through the world wars either started or were directed from this tight-knit neighborhood in Chicago.

Polish peasants emigrated to America beginning in the 19th century in search of za chlebem (bread). Based on census and immigration records, between 1897 and 1913 an estimated two million ethnic Poles left a European continent that no longer had a Polish nation. Polish lands had been occupied by foreign powers since 1795. Poles were attracted to cities of industry and so Chicago, with its superb transportation links to the East Coast and its burgeoning role in trade and industry, became this country’s most Polish city. But Poles brought with them and cherished within their hearts a fervent dream to recreate a free Polish nation in the fatherland. In the early years of immigration the battling factions of American Polonia were always at odds over the best ways to do this. Those battles were often waged in Polish Downtown. But at the dawn of World War I all Polonia joined together, from their offices and churches and societies in Polish Downtown, to launch the War for Poland. These efforts led to a free Poland in 1918 and provided countless relief packages to war-torn lands.

Polish community building in Chicago began with the organization of Catholic parishes and the formation of mutual aid societies to provide death benefits to members. The city’s first Polish parish, St. Stanislaus Kostka, was founded here in 1867 and has long been considered a mother church. Practically all older Polish parishes owe their origins to its first pastor, Rev. Vincent Barzynski. Its rival, Holy Trinity, was located just two short blocks away. The combined membership of these parishes numbered over 60,000 in the early 1900s. Each parish met not just religious needs, but served as a community center—the center of a Catholic Pole’s whole life. They sponsored literary societies, dramatic productions, choirs and concerts, recreational activities, and sports teams. And if St. Stanislaus founded a society, Holy Trinity was quick to found its own.

The headquarters for almost every major Polish organization in America were located in Polish Downtown, including the country’s two largest fraternal associations, the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America and the Polish National Alliance. When these two fraternals would not let women join, Polish women, who played a strong role in their families, parishes, and communities, founded the Polish Women’s Alliance around the corner. Polish Downtown was also the center of the Polish press in America. By 1910, four Polish-language daily newspapers were published here, as well as scores of literature, drama, dictionaries, textbooks, and religious books. The storefronts along Noble Street, and later up and down Milwaukee Avenue, were filled with Polish-owned stores, restaurants, banks, and businesses of all kinds.

As you look at the streets of Polish Downtown and the faces of its early immigrants, you will be transported back to the spirit that was Chicago’s old Polonia. To Polonia today we say, "Sto Lat"—may you live for a hundred years more.

The interior of St. Stanislaus is 200 feet long and 80 feet wide, seating 1,500. The painting over the altar by Thaddeus Zukotynski depicts Our Lady placing the infant Jesus in the arms of St. Stanislaus Kostka. Zukotynski, who came to Chicago in 1888, was considered one of Europe’s foremost painters of religious subjects. Other artistic treasures in the church include the stained glass windows by F. X. Zettler of the Royal Bavarian Institute in Munich and the chandeliers in the nave from the studios of Louis Tiffany.

One

POLISH CATHOLIC PARISHES

The heart of Chicago’s Polonia, from its founding in the late 1860s, was its Catholic parishes. St. Stanislaus Kostka was the first Polish parish in Chicago and is considered the mother church of all Polonia. Organized in 1867 by the Society of St. Stanislaus, its first permanent pastor was Rev. Vincent Michael Barzynski, who served for over 25 years. St. Stanislaus eventually became one of the nation’s largest Catholic parishes, with 35,000 worshippers.

The efforts of Rev. Barzynski and his Congregation of the Resurrection in the explosive expansion of Polonia’s community/parish system were unmatched in Chicago by any other group. He is credited with either directly or indirectly organizing 23 Polish parishes, all with a host of associated societies, confraternities, and sodalities. Wherever a Polish colony settled, Barzynski would be there to build a church and supply a Resurrectionist priest or recommend a Polish-speaking diocesan priest to serve it. By the turn of the century, in Polish Downtown and nearby, in addition to St. Stanislaus and Holy Trinity, there were St. John Cantius, St. Mary of the Angels, St. Hedwig’s, and St. Hyacinth’s parishes. There were six parochial elementary schools, two high schools, one college, several orphanages, two newspapers, a Polish-run hospital, and the headquarters of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, all located in Polish Downtown and all benefitting from the indefatigable energy of one cleric.

Most Poles were Catholic but not all shared the Resurrectionist priority of Catholic first, Pole second. Within Chicago’s Polonia was an intense fervor to reestablish a free Polish nation, which had been wiped off the map of Europe in 1795. This Polish nationalism found its religious home at Holy Trinity Church, just two blocks down Noble Street from St. Stanislaus. Holy Trinity struggled with St. Stanislaus for 20 years over Polish national politics and which priests would be in control. Organized in 1873 by the Resurrectionists, it closed five times until finally reopening in 1893 after a compromise was reached with the Chicago archdiocese appointing Holy Cross Fathers. Rev. Casimir Sztuczko, CSC, was named pastor and served for 35 years. Under him, Holy Trinity became a center of Polish National Alliance activities in Polonia and numbered 25,000 members. In fact the politics of America’s Polonia, which became a struggle between the Unionists of the Polish Roman Catholic Union and the Alliancists of the Polish National Alliance, was split along the same deep divide that separated two of the largest Roman Catholic parishes in the world.

Into the 20th century, the Catholic parish remained the center of immigrant Poles’ lives. In 1918, the combined parishes of St. Stanislaus, Holy Trinity, St. John Cantius, Holy Innocents, St. Hedwig’s, and St. Mary of the Angels had over 100,000 parishioners within a one-mile radius. With their enormous investment in physical plants, these parishes kept the residential neighborhoods and commercial streets of Polish Downtown dense, stable, and Polish through the end of World War I. Though the grandchildren of the first immigrants have moved to other city and suburban communities, the churches